IHSHistoric weather changes in Inkpen will be available on this site soon.
The Age of Trees.
Inkpen's landscape was once covered in trees. It was part of the Savernake forest. Clearance of trees to create farming land took off on Saxon times. Oak trees were prized up until the early 1900s for their use in boat building. Lord Craven's estate held frequent sales of oak trees for all kinds of uses, so finding old oaks in what remains is uncommon. One thing that is clear in Inkpen is that roads are frequently lined with oak's. Coming from any direction into inkpen, you will see oak trees.
In 2023 we started measuring the girth of oak trees so as to assess a trees age. There is a simple rule of thumb enabling the determination of the age of oaks from this simple measurement. What has to be taken into account is the position of the oak tree. Trees inside woodland grow at a slower rate than those on the perimeter. Those in good soil grow at a faster rate than those in poor soil. So there's some flexibility when it comes to interpreting a rule of thumb. The best way to get some value for the relationship between girth and age is to measure the girth of fallen trees and count the tree rings. We ended up with a value of just over half the girth equal to the age of the tree.
The image below marks the position of measured oaks with a little blue dot.
Oaks of age on field boundaries often grow at an accelerated age relative to those within woodland, but they are few. Manor Farm had the best collection to date.
More work needs to be done on this with the remaining roads and woodland surveyed.
The importance of old trees, especially oak trees, is shown here.
Mike's Musings 2009-2016
During
the period August 2009 to October 2016, Mike Stabler wrote a
regular piece on local nature for the Inkpen and Combe bulletin.
Mike was a keen conservationist. He recognised the importance of
the natural order and in many respects was ahead of his time. The
table below contains a few of Mike’s bi-monthly contributions. Dip
in and see what the past has to tell you.
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Moths
In 2004, Stephen Painting conducted a survey of moths throughout the year. The results are here. In 2024, twenty years on, we repeated the survey to try and see if climate change is having an effect on insect populations. The results are in but not yet in a form fit for this website but here are just a few of the moths seen.
Insect data is considered to be one of the key markers for climate change.
Our history society strongly supports the North Wessex Downs National Landscape initiative on dark skies. Most insects are nocturnal and the considerable and often unnecessary use of lights in our modern lives often frustrates the natural life cycle of insects, in particular, flying insects such as moths and beetles. Just eliminating out door light can pay huge dividends. The following video was shot using IR cameras on a warm summers evening in 2024.